


mend another

by yeswayappianway



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Curses, Getting Together, Multi, Pegging, Podfic Available, Polyamory, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:23:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22097332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeswayappianway/pseuds/yeswayappianway
Summary: Ryanne shakes her head. “Not at all! I’m happy to help.” It sounds like she means it, too. “Do you want to eat dinner first, or get right down to it?”“Uh…” Danny hesitates. He would prefer to get the curse broken as soon as possible, but he doesn’t want to interrupt their dinner. And then there’s the part Danny is trying not to think about, which is that this is the most time he’s spent with Claude in a long while, and he doesn’t know how he’ll feel if it ends now.“You should do it now,” Claude says.
Relationships: Ryanne Breton/Danny Briere/Claude Giroux
Comments: 20
Kudos: 98





	mend another

**Author's Note:**

  * For [remiges](https://archiveofourown.org/users/remiges/gifts).
  * Inspired by [moon in her eye](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17740214) by [yeswayappianway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeswayappianway/pseuds/yeswayappianway). 

> technically this is an AU because i wanted a setting in which claude and ryanne were married but ryanne hadn’t gotten pregnant/had a kid yet. honestly i considered having the baby exist, and making danny’s boys babysit because HOW CUTE WOULD THAT BE but i decided it would be easier to just not worry about it. (if someone wants to write that fic tho, i would LOVE YOU FOREVER)
> 
> also technically a sequel to my other witch!ryanne fic, but the only thing you need to know is: ryanne is a witch. otherwise this is uh. pretty unrelated to that one, which is why i've listed that as an inspiration for this fic instead of making them a series
> 
> many many thanks to jarka for the beta <3
> 
> title from No Rest for the Wicked, by Lykke Li

“It’s weird, right?” Claude says in a low voice. Danny nods. He doesn’t know what else to say. It’s one thing to know, intellectually, that the world of professional sports is fast-paced and ruthless, and another to come back to this team that feels so familiar to him and be confronted with so many unknown faces. The rookies look so young. Danny realizes, almost distantly, that some of them are likely the same age as Caelan.

It’s strange to feel so familiar somewhere and so incredibly out of place at the same time.

“Hey, Danny,” Claude says, and he’s still speaking quietly enough that no one else can hear him. It jars Danny out of his thoughts. He’s grateful for that. “I’m almost done here. Do you want to wait out by the car?”

Danny snorts. “Trying to get rid of me so soon?” His tone is lighter than he feels, but it’s so easy to slip back into old patterns with Claude.

Claude, however, clearly doesn’t feel the same, because he frowns a little. “Never,” he says, and it’s casual, despite the declaration that statement is for them. It’s not like Danny doesn’t know how much Claude’s grown up since he lived with Danny and the boys, but sometimes it strikes Danny all over again just how much life they’ve both lived since then.

“Oh,” Danny manages, swallowing. “Well, in that case. Sure, I’ll see you out there in a bit.”

\-----

One thing that apparently hasn’t changed is Claude’s appalling taste in music. “Hasn’t Ryanne trained you out of this shit yet?”

Claude turns the music up. “That’s why I’m listening to it now. Gotta get my time in when she’s not around.” Danny feels something sour turn over in his stomach at how that sentence could apply to him. He tries to ignore it.

They sit, not speaking, music blaring for a few minutes as Claude drives them towards his apartment. Finally, Claude asks, “So, what’s the problem, exactly?”

It’s why he’s here, so Danny supposes he can’t really put it off, but at the same time, he’s spent so long not talking about it that he’s hesitant to tell anyone. “I, ah… ran into some trouble a few months ago. I woke up one morning and everything was… gray.”

“Well, maybe that’s what you get for moving to Maine,” Claude says, in the particular tone that Danny knows, even without looking, means he’s smirking at his own terrible joke.

Danny doesn’t laugh. “Very funny. No, I mean, I can’t see anything in color. I can see fine—or, well, I can see as well as I could before that morning,” he says, awkwardly, thinking about the reading glasses stuffed somewhere in his suitcase. “But everything is all in grays.”

“Shit,” says Claude. “That’s not an easy curse.”

“Yeah?” Danny asks, because to be honest, he doesn’t know shit about magic. Most people don’t, and it’s another reminder of how much Claude’s life has changed that he can say that as authoritatively as he did.

Nodding, Claude says, “Yeah, anything with how someone sees or hears—any kind of senses— is a lot more complicated than just changing what something is. There’s more layers to it, I think?”

That makes sense, Danny supposes. Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe Claude’s just playing with him. He honestly doesn’t know anymore, and it’s not helping the mood he’s finding himself sinking further and further into with every second he’s in Philadelphia. “And you think Ryanne can fix it?”

“Of course,” the pride is evident in Claude’s voice. Claude had always liked bragging about his partners.

Danny smiles back, because what else can he do? “That’s good to hear. It’s really good of her to offer to help, I really appreciate it.”

It’s dark in the car, so Danny can’t make out the expression on Claude’s face, but he definitely gives him a look of some sort. He doesn’t say anything, but he does turn down the music until Danny can barely make out the words, and they drive the rest of the way in the quiet.

\-----

Danny has met Ryanne before. He’d been at the wedding, of course, but he’d actually met her briefly a few times before then. She seems like a very nice person. Danny has never been able to make himself carry on a long enough conversation to form a stronger opinion than that, but he’s under no illusions that that’s got anything to do with her.

Still, it shocks him when she greets him with a hug as soon as he’s through the door of their apartment. He hadn’t thought that she was the kind of person who liked that sort of casual contact with acquaintances, but he’s been wrong before. Danny doesn’t let himself speculate if there’s some hidden meaning, because he knows himself, and if he starts thinking that way, it will take over his whole brain in a matter of minutes. Instead, he hugs back gingerly, and says, “Thank you for offering to help with this, Ryanne, I know it’s an imposition.” Sometimes it surprises Danny that he’s a real adult that uses words like imposition in his everyday life, and not just when he’s trying to scold his kids.

She shakes her head. “Not at all! I’m happy to help.” It sounds like she means it, too. “Do you want to eat dinner first, or get right down to it?”

“Uh…” Danny hesitates. He would prefer to get the curse broken as soon as possible, but he doesn’t want to interrupt their dinner. And then there’s the part Danny is trying not to think about, which is that this is the most time he’s spent with Claude in a long while, and he doesn’t know how he’ll feel if it ends now.

“You should do it now,” Claude says. He’s leaning on the back of the couch and studying Danny. Danny wants to study him back, try to figure out that expression on his face, but he can’t. Ryanne nods.

“Sounds good. Danny, can you take a seat in one of the chairs?” She gestures to the far end of the living room, where two plush pale chairs sit, perpendicular to the couch. When Danny begins making his way over to them, she briskly strides off in the opposite direction.

Danny sits down. It’s awkward, and the strained quality of the silence is getting to him more than he thought. “Where are the dogs?” he asks.

Claude snorts, as if he can see how transparent Danny is, but he sits down on the couch, and answers. “They’re in the other room right now. Sometimes we just need them out of our hair. You can see them later, after dinner. They’ll be excited to have someone else to jump on.”

While Danny is trying to come up with something else equally inane and low-stakes to talk about and despairing, Ryanne comes back in, a dark wicker basket balanced on her hip. “Alright, Danny, what’s the problem?” He explains his inability to see color again, and she nods. “Do you have any idea how this might have happened?” Danny shakes his head. Ryanne nods again. “Alright, just needed to ask. Most people who need curses broken don’t know how the curse happened in the first place, so that’s pretty normal. Last thing: do you know if it’s any different than when you first noticed the curse? Have you started seeing hints of color, or are there more shades of gray now?”

Danny wracks his brain. “I mean, maybe?” he guesses. “I don’t know if I’m just getting used to it, or if it’s actually changing.”

“No worries,” Ryanne says cheerfully. “I just need to cover all my bases. Alright. You don’t need to stay perfectly still, but I’m going to set up a ward around you, so try not to move outside of it. You can move inside it all you want.” She sets the basket down on the other chair and pulls out a spool of something. Danny realizes it’s a thick band of ribbon as she lays it out in a circle around his chair, leaving enough space for him to stretch his legs out in front of him. He can’t see what she’s doing behind him, although he thinks he hears her mutter something, so he just looks across the room. He can see Claude still studying him out of the corner of his eye, but Danny doesn’t want to look back at him.

“So, first,” Ryanne starts, “I’m going to do… it’s basically a magical scan, to try and determine what’s wrong. There’s a lot of different ways people can lay a curse on you, and they might have the same effect but be constructed completely differently, and that will change how I try to break it. This shouldn’t take long.” She sits down on the floor, cross-legged and barefoot, and Danny admires how confident she seems. She’s clearly in her element in the same way that Claude is at the rink, or Danny—well. Danny hasn’t felt in his element in years.

Ryanne makes a complicated gesture with her left hand and holds her right out toward Danny, her palm open and facing him. There’s a flicker of something in the air between them, and Danny feels something like a static shock roll over his body. Ryanne was right. It doesn’t take long at all. Lowering her hand, Ryanne frowns a little, her brows drawing together in what seems to be concentration.

“So…” Danny says after another moment in silence. It seems to draw Ryanne out of her thoughts. She shakes her head as if to clear it and stands up to root through the basket.

“I think I know how to break the curse. It’s relatively straightforward, luckily for us,” Ryanne says, distracted. “Where is that—ah-hah, there we go. Alright, Danny, I’ll be right back. Just hang out there for a minute.” And then she disappears back through the doorway. It’s hitting Danny that he doesn’t even know what the rest of the apartment looks like. He almost snorts. God, even in his own head he can’t just come out and say it. It’s not the apartment that’s bothering him, of course, it’s that he doesn’t know the shape of Claude’s life anymore. He hasn’t in years, and Danny’s been trying and trying to convince himself that it doesn’t matter. Sometimes it works.

Almost as if Danny’s thoughts caused it, Claude speaks up. “Why did you ask me for this?”

“What?” Danny asks. He’d say he wasn’t following the conversation, but there wasn’t one.

Claude is studying him again. Maybe he hasn’t stopped. “Why did you contact me to ask if Ryanne could break this curse? You’ve got to know other people who could do that. I know you had curses broken while you were playing, and you’ve probably got someone you work with up in Maine, right?” Danny can only nod. “So why did you ask us?”

_Us_. They’re an us. Of course Claude and Ryanne are an us. They’re married, which is practically just a legal expression of two people being an us. Still, hearing Claude say it so casually hits something deep in Danny’s heart far harder than he’d expected. The thing is, Danny doesn’t exactly know why he’d asked Claude. Or rather, he does, but he doesn’t want to admit it. Claude deserves his honesty, though, and if it means Danny has to face his own mortifying feelings, so be it. 

“I knew I could trust you and Ryanne,” he starts, which is the easy part. “And… I wanted a reason to come see you.” Danny doesn’t let himself break eye contact with Claude, which means he sees Claude’s eyebrows fly up. He wonders if Claude is surprised at the reason or only surprised that Danny admitted it. They’ve both grown up a lot since they lived together, really.

It looks like Claude is about to say something else when Ryanne re-enters the room. “Alright,” she announces. Claude sinks back into the couch and doesn’t say anything. Danny takes a slow, deliberate breath, letting it out through his nose.

Ryanne either doesn’t notice that she’d interrupted something or she decides to ignore it. She holds up a small marble bowl. “I’ve mixed up a solution. I’m going to apply it to your face—nothing dramatic, it’ll just feel like face paint or eyeblack, and then I’ll ask you to concentrate on the memory of something colorful, and I’ll do the last bit of the spell. Hopefully, that should break the curse, and if not, we’ll figure it out from there.” Danny wonders if Ryanne had to learn this sort of bedside manner, or if it comes naturally to her. She’d make a good teacher, he thinks.

“Okay,” he says, for lack of anything better.

That seems to be what Ryanne was waiting for, because she steps into the ribbon circle that still surrounds him. She goes to set the bowl down and she must realize that there’s nowhere convenient to put it, because she says, “Here, can you hold this for me?” Danny takes the bowl. He was right about it being marble, or at least some kind of heavy, smooth stone. He can see the mixture in it now, a dull dark viscous paste. He almost expects there to be a smell, but he doesn’t notice one.

“This will probably be pretty cold,” Ryanne warns, and then she dips a finger into the bowl. Delicately, she raises it to his cheek. It is cold, but that doesn’t throw Danny off as much as how lightly she drags her finger over his skin. He can feel the cool trace the paste leaves behind as Ryanne slowly traces a pattern on his left cheek. He’s trying to hold still, so when she lifts her other hand to his chin and tries to tilt his head, he resists at first. “Can you tip your head to this side?” she asks, and Danny overreacts, moves more quickly than he needs to follow the direction.

Danny doesn’t know where to look. Ryanne is directly in front of him, taking up his whole field of view, especially since she’s standing and he’s sitting. She’s having to stand very close to him, and Danny can feel the warmth of her body against his legs. His emotions are pulling in so many different directions right now that it’s all he can do to keep the bowl steady for Ryanne.

She dips her finger back into the paste, but keeps her other hand on his chin. It’s warm and firm in a way that Danny thinks would probably be grounding if his heart wasn’t trying to beat itself out of his chest. He doesn’t remember the last time someone touched him like this. Obviously this particular scenario is rather unique, but the care Ryanne is taking with him—it feels intimate and Danny instinctively wants to react to it. It’s _nice_, feeling like he’s being taken care of.

It’s very quiet. Danny can hear Ryanne’s breathing. Just a moment ago, he’d felt like he could barely contain himself enough to stay still, and now he doesn’t think he could move if he wanted to. Danny almost wonders if this is part of the spell. He knows it’s not. Ryanne leans back a bit, tilts his face one way and then the other, her hand still lightly cradling his chin. She dips a bit of the paste from the bowl and touches it to each cheek. It’s distracting, barely catching sight of the designs out of the edges of his vision.

“I need you to close your eyes for me,” Ryanne says. Her voice is surprisingly rough, but Danny is too startled by the sound of it into the silence of the room to try and understand why that might be. “I’m going to put some of this on your eyelids.”

It’s such an easy thing, closing his eyes, and yet it feels to Danny like an unspeakably significant moment. It feels like putting his fate in Ryanne’s hands, and maybe some other time, that would seem overly dramatic, but right now it’s all he can think. Danny closes his eyes. Ryanne tilts his head up slightly and slowly drags her finger over first his right eye and then his left.

Danny keeps his eyes closed even as Ryanne lets go of his face. “Now,” she says, so low it’s almost a whisper. “I need you to think of something colorful, something you can remember and concentrate on. Anything that you can visualize clearly and that’s a distinctive color. Keep picturing it while I finish casting the spell. Got it?” Danny nods very slightly. “Good.” And then Ryanne starts speaking again, but it’s not in any language Danny recognizes, and he realizes this must be the spell.

He wonders if she realizes that he would immediately think of a Flyers jersey with those instructions. It’s been years since he wore one himself, but that doesn’t stop the way it’s emblazoned in his mind. The crisp black and white of the logo against the bright orange, distinctive and blaring, bright against the backdrop of the ice. The numbers printed so starkly on the back, a tw— Danny stops. The logo against an orange field. That’s easy. Simple. Don’t think about anything else, he instructs himself.

Ryanne is still speaking, but Danny starts feeling something. At first he thinks she’s put her hands on his shoulders, but as the feeling glides down his arms and chest, he realizes that it can’t be anything physically present. It’s too smooth and too spread out to be hands. There’s some quality to it, though, that feels like Ryanne’s hands on his face a minute before. The way the sensation moves, gentle and steady and warm, until it’s covering all of him. There’s a faint hum under the words Ryanne is chanting and it really hits Danny that this is _magic_. Most people’s experience with magic stops and ends at impersonal charms and wards, external objects that do what they’re supposed to without ever letting the user feel anything, no different than using a phone or a flashlight. This is so much more personal and immediate.

All at once, there’s a sensation of warmth and light against parts of his face, presumably where Ryanne has painted it, and she speaks one last sharp phrase, and then everything fades with a slight pop. “You can open your eyes now,” Ryanne says and Danny doesn’t think he’s imagining the trepidation in her voice.

Every once in a while, there have been moments in Danny’s life that made him understand what people must see when they try to make movies. Those times where everything seems larger than life and so weighted that they can only be conveyed by slow motion, or an exaggerated focus of a camera. This is one of them. 

Danny opens his eyes. Ryanne has stepped back and to the side, so the first thing Danny sees is Claude’s hair—no longer in shades of grey but a dull orange, a little lighter and a little less red than Danny remembers it being. It couldn’t have been more cinematic if he’d planned it, Danny thinks, a little wildly.

“Did it work?” Claude asks, lurching to his feet.

“Yeah,” Danny stammers.

Claude strides across the room towards them, and for a moment, the movie version of the world that’s playing in Danny’s head suggests that Claude is coming toward _him_. Reality reasserts itself, though, and Claude steps up to Ryanne, who’s released a noisy breath of relief. Claude kisses her. It’s not particularly lengthy or even intense, but Danny feels like he should look away regardless. He’s not supposed to be here. Any thoughts he had to the contrary were just fanciful wishes, and Danny is supposed to be better than that.

He still doesn’t look away, which means he sees Claude pull back from Ryanne. They stare at each other for a moment, and then Claude asks, “Yeah?” Danny has no idea what that’s meant to refer to, but it seems Ryanne does, because she nods emphatically. Claude keeps looking at her for a moment longer, and then steps away.

Now he really does come toward Danny, one long step bringing him to where Ryanne had been standing against Danny’s legs. Danny is about to ask if Claude wants something when Claude leans down and kisses him. It’s not hesitant—it’s exactly the kind of kiss Danny remembers from Germany, and the familiarity stuns him more than the surprise of it happening now. Danny has been dreaming about this exact kind of kiss for years.

Of course Danny kisses back. It’s pure instinct, his body reacting to muscle memory. Claude’s lips are surprisingly soft, and some part of Danny’s brain manages to wonder if Ryanne’s finally convinced him to use chapstick.

Somehow the thought of Ryanne isn’t enough to throw him off, but the faintest noise of her shifting is. Danny jerks back, although he can’t go far with the back of the chair trapping him, and stares at Claude.

“What— You— But Ryanne—” Danny starts wildly, and Claude rolls his eyes fondly.

“Danny, she’s standing right there, do you really think she didn’t know I was gonna do that?”

Danny doesn’t have the first fucking idea what he thinks. It’s possible that he isn’t thinking at all, that he’s just replaying the feel of Claude’s lips against his over and over again instead of managing a single coherent thought. It’s possible this is all a dream and any second now, he’s going to wake up. Maybe this whole curse was one long, complicated scenario thought up by his subconscious mind and he should be evaluating what that says about his mental state.

“Danny,” Ryanne says hesitantly, and that jars him out of the whirlpool his thoughts have rapidly become. Danny looks at her, hyper-conscious of how close Claude is still standing to him. “Claude and I talked about this.”

Danny opens his mouth twice before managing to force any noise out of his throat. “What did you talk about, exactly?” he rasps.

They exchange a look, and Claude takes a half step back. He’s still close enough that Danny could reach out for him easily, but it feels less crowded. Claude is the one who answers. “I told Ryanne about us before we got married—after you’d retired though, I was careful,” Claude adds, and there’s a little frown pulling at the corners of his mouth as if that was his main concern, that Danny couldn’t possibly be hurt by his actions. It makes Danny feel like someone has reached inside of him and twisted. It was so easy to remember all of Claude’s rough edges, all the hockey-typical bravado, and so Danny had forgotten the ways Claude prioritized the people he— cared about.

It’s that care that keeps Danny’s voice calm as he asks, “So what was this, then?” He’s trying very hard not to let his brain careen down the paths it so easily falls into—that this doesn’t mean to Claude what it does to Danny, that this is some kind of idle whim, that Ryanne will be disgusted. _No_, he tells himself firmly, _Claude wouldn’t do that. Ryanne wouldn’t do that after she’s just broken this curse for me_. And when Danny looks over at Ryanne, she certainly doesn’t seem disgusted. She’s not even watching Claude, actually, but instead watching Danny with an expression on her face that he doesn’t recognize. Danny wonders how long he’d need to spend with her to get to know her expressions. Claude had always been easy to read.

Claude is still easy to read, in fact. He’s nervous in a way Danny only remembers seeing a few times, the kind of nerves that he knows he can’t just play through. As Claude finally answers him, though, Danny recognizes that he’s still determined to see this through. 

“This was something I’ve been missing for years,” Claude admits. “I love Ryanne, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still love you, too.” Claude swallows, and looks away. “I don’t think I ever stopped,” he says. It comes out very quiet. Danny wants to look at Ryanne, see what she thinks of all this, but he can’t tear his eyes away from Claude for even a second. Claude keeps talking. “I thought that meant something was wrong with me for a long time. I thought I was fucking up my marriage with Ryanne before it even started, but we talked,” he glances over at Ryanne, “and we talked to some other people and to… a professional, and it’s not… I’m not fucked up. This is a thing people do, and I don’t know if it would work for us, or even if you would be interested, but…” Claude trails off.

“But what?” Danny hears himself ask the question. He doesn’t really feel conscious of saying it. He’s too afraid to even think about this directly, in the increasingly smaller chance that he’s misinterpreting something here. Danny doesn’t think he is, though, which is somehow more terrifying.

“But if you would be willing to try, I want to be with you, as well as Ryanne,” Claude says, and it seems like it takes a physical effort for him to stop talking further. Ryanne steps in for him, and Danny can see already how well they fit together. It makes him wonder what his place would be in this future that Claude is proposing.

“I wouldn’t expect you to have anything to do with me,” Ryanne says. “At least, not romantically. If you’re going to date my husband, I’d like to at least be friends, and maybe,” it’s her turn to swallow and steel herself. “Maybe potentially something more eventually?”

Danny’s sure he’s gaping at them. It’s just— this is so far from how he thought this day would go. He’d figured the best he could hope for was a nice, nostalgic evening talking with Claude, and now, being confronted with these previously unimaginable opportunities, Danny is afraid that he’s going to be so paralyzed that he’ll miss them forever.

It’s only when Ryanne starts again, clearly crestfallen, that Danny realizes he needs to say something. “Sorry, I’m sorry, that was inappropriate of me,” she says, and Danny doesn’t know how to even begin approaching what she’d suggested, but he does know that the very concept of Ryanne shrinking in on herself like this feels wrong to him.

“No!” he blurts. “No, I’m sorry, I’m just—I’m a little overwhelmed right now, and I don’t really know how to answer any of this, but that wasn’t—can you just give me a minute?” Danny says helplessly.

“Of course,” Ryanne says. She still looks withdrawn. “Should we go somewhere else? We can go into the kitchen, or—“

Danny and Claude both cut her off with an immediate, “No,” but Claude is the one who explains, “Danny just needs time to think through things before he talks sometimes.” Danny hasn’t even had a chance to process how he feels that Claude remembers that when Claude looks at him, and the fondness on his face nearly makes Danny stop breathing. “We used to say he thought too much to be allowed to be a hockey player.” Taking Ryanne’s hand, Claude leads her back to the couch where they sit down.

Now that Danny has gotten his minute, he has to actually think this through, which is a terrifying prospect. What _does_ he want? It feels so easy to want Claude again (as if he ever really stopped), but what would that look like? He’s not going to give up his job with the Mariners, and he hopes to god that Claude has years worth of playing time left in him. They could travel, though, and Skype. And they’d have summers, too. Maybe most importantly, he could think of Claude without that sad twinge in his heart. 

But what about Ryanne? She’s beautiful, unsurprisingly. It seems like maybe she’s interested in him to some degree, which is incredibly flattering. Clearly she and Claude are together for the long haul—Danny doesn’t have to look farther than himself for proof that marriage doesn’t necessarily mean anything in that regard, but something about the way they move around each other makes Danny think that they’ll be happy together for a long time. Can he justify potentially fucking that up for them? Then again, hadn’t Claude already addressed that? Maybe he should trust Claude to know himself, and Ryanne. 

If that was the case, then all that was left was Danny’s own fear. Well. Danny had listened to his own fear a lot over the years, and while sometimes he had been right, it never felt good either way.

“What if… what if we tried this?” Danny says. He can’t look at them.

“What do you mean, ‘this’?” Claude asks, eyes narrowing.

The way he says it puts Danny’s temper on edge. “I don’t know, Claude! You started this, don’t put it all on me!” He tries to take a deep breath and find whatever precarious calm he had been holding onto a moment ago.

Ryanne doesn’t look at either of them. “If you don’t know what you want, maybe you shouldn’t be agreeing,” she says flatly.

“I don’t know what I _can_ want!” The words burst out of Danny. “You’ve done research, you’ve talked to people, but this is completely new to me! Why the hell would I know how to respond to this?” He realizes he’s standing now.

“I don’t think it’s that hard, Danny,” she says. Now she’s looking at him—glaring, and Danny can’t even begin to figure out why.

Claude stands up. “Hey, alright, clearly this isn’t going well. We still haven’t eaten. Let’s warm up dinner and we can talk afterwards. Or during, I just think maybe that will help.”

Danny abruptly remembers that he’s a guest in their home. What is he doing? He’s supposed to be making things easy for them, thanking Ryanne for helping him with the curse, and instead he’s yelling and Claude of all people is having to calm him down. Then again, maybe that’s something Claude does a lot now. Danny wouldn’t know. And isn’t that just exactly the problem here? He stands in the living room, paralyzed by his thoughts for a while, until Claude says, “You can come help too,” and gestures into the kitchen. Danny follows.

\-----

“So, you said you talked to people about—stuff like this,” Danny says awkwardly. They managed to work out some of the tension while Claude bossed them around to make dinner, but now that they’ve sat down to eat, the mood seemed to be dropping again. Danny hadn’t wanted to risk that.

Claude nods, putting down his fork. “Yeah. Polyamory. Dating more than one person. There’s a lot of information about it online, and it turns out we have a friend of a friend who’s polyamorous.” The way he over-emphasizes the consonants in ‘polyamory’ tells Danny that Claude still isn’t quite as comfortable with this concept as he’s trying to seem.

Danny takes a bite while he waits for Claude to keep going. He doesn’t, so Danny asks, “What did they say about it?”

“Basically that it can be a lot of different things, but that the important part is that it’s just like any other relationship—it’s important to communicate with everyone involved and make sure everyone is happy,” Claude says. A little dazed, Danny tries to overlay 22 year-old Claude with the words coming out of Claude’s mouth now. He wonders if Claude’s outgrown him.

“Did you—” Danny swallows, and addresses Ryanne. “Did you talk about what you would want a relationship with me to look like? I mean day-to-day things, logistics. I live in a different state. I have kids. Claude is still playing professionally and Philadelphia knows who I am.” It’s an approach to life that Danny has had to take ever since he had kids; sweeping declarations are all well and good, but who’s going to get the boys to school?

Ryanne finishes her mouthful of food. “We did talk about it, but we weren’t sure if you would even be interested, so we hadn’t talked in many particulars. Obviously you two could spend time together over the summers. Maybe when your travel schedules line up? And then there’s Skype, of course, and I know a few spells that would probably help keep up a long-distance relationship.” Danny notices she’s only referring to him and Claude.

Clearly Claude notices the same thing, because he reaches over and lays his hand gently over one of hers. “What about you, babe? What do you want?”

She sighs. “I don’t know. Claude, you know I want you to be happy, and I don’t blame you for still having feelings for Danny. I never will. I also have plenty of other things in my life, I don’t need you around all the time, or even all your time outside of hockey. But…” She looks at Danny. “I feel like I know you already, Danny, from having listened to so many of Claude’s stories. But you reminded me that I actually don’t know you very well at all, and I think I need to if you and Claude are going to have a relationship.”

Danny nods. There’s a lump in his throat. “Of course. I’m… I’m sorry, Ryanne, you were already so generous, letting me come here tonight, taking care of the curse, I should have been more grateful, I should have given you a chance—” and Danny has to stop speaking then because god, what kind of self-centered asshole was he?

“Excuse me?” Ryanne says, in a way that immediately jolts Danny out of his guilt. Her eyebrows are raised incredulously high, and there’s a faint breeze wafting her hair around. “Are you suggesting you should date me as a _thank you_?”

“No!” Danny practically yells. “No, of course not! I should have given you the chance to _talk_. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that at all. I don’t want to have ruined your evening after you’ve done so much for me today. ”

The breeze stops, and Ryanne rubs a hand over her face. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have jumped to that conclusion. I guess I’m just a little on edge about this.” She holds up a hand to forestall whatever Claude had been about to say. “I’m not changing my mind, Claude, I still think this is a good idea. I just didn’t know how this was going to go, and I’m worried that I’m going to fuck something up irreparably somehow. Danny, Claude has told me so much about you, and I think I wanted to impress you, and instead…” She waves a hand toward him, looking a little sheepish. “This happened.”

Danny thinks about Ryanne breaking the curse, outwardly confident and visibly powerful. He realizes he’s been thinking about her and Claude as if Ryanne were the calm, competent, stable one, and Claude was formerly a mess that she’d managed to clean up. That isn’t fair to either of them, though. Claude had been captaining an NHL team for half a decade now, and even when he’d lived with Danny, he’d been perfectly capable of being responsible when he needed to be. And just because Ryanne is a powerful witch doesn’t mean that she isn’t also just a person who could mess up and who had her own normal hangups.

And then something else she said really sinks in. “You… wanted to impress me? Why?”

Ryanne rolls her eyes. “You haven’t heard Claude talk about you if you don’t know that. He thinks you hung the moon in the sky.”

Claude looks like he’s blushing, and Danny takes a moment to appreciate that he can see that now. “Claude?”

“I mean, I have plenty of stories about how you can’t cook for yourself, too,” Claude protests.

This is where Danny is supposed to shoot back that just because Claude can make a grilled cheese sandwich doesn’t mean he can actually cook. He doesn’t, because Danny finds that he doesn’t want to break the mood they all seem to be in. “Maybe we should just talk, then,” Danny suggests. “It seems like maybe we’ve both gotten ideas about each other second-hand, and… I think I’ve been feeling a little like I don’t know Claude as well anymore as I thought I did.”

Ryanne smiles. “That would be nice.”

\-----

“What did you think was going to happen, Danny?” Claude exclaims as Ryanne giggles.

Danny knows that there’s no arguing with Claude about this, just like there hadn’t been when it had happened. It doesn’t mean he’s willing to give up, especially since their back and forth is clearly entertaining Ryanne. “I _thought_ you were going to be a responsible adult and not help my son sneak out in the middle of the night!”

“He was going to do it anyway! It would have been so much worse if I hadn’t helped, he would have been even more of a mess,” Claude gestures with his beer. They’d all moved into the living room after dinner, and Claude and Danny are at either end of the couch, with Ryanne curled into Claude’s side facing Danny. It had started slowly, with Danny and Ryanne asking each other the most basic of ‘getting to know you’ questions, but it hadn’t taken long for Claude and Danny to fall back into their old patterns, and Ryanne was clearly willing to encourage them.

“That didn’t mean you should have encouraged it,” Danny shakes his head. Ryanne is fully laughing now, and Danny feels triumphant about that.

She elbows Claude lightly. “So I guess you were the cool dad?”

Claude looks at Danny. “I don’t know if I was really a dad at all, I think I was just there sometimes.”

“No, you were definitely the cool dad,” Danny tells him immediately. It’s also worth it to see the way Claude’s face softens at Danny’s acknowledgment of how much of a family they’d been. It’s also true. His boys never let him forget that he’s certainly not the cool dad.

“I’m glad they’re doing well,” Claude says, a little wistfully.

Without letting himself think about it too much, Danny says, “You should come visit this summer when they’re all home. They’d like that. I’d like that,” he adds. The flutter in his stomach tells him exactly how much he’d like that, and by the way Claude’s eyes widen a little, he’s not the only one. Still not letting himself think too hard, Danny makes a decision. “You should both come.”

Ryanne’s mouth opens a little, like she wants to say something but doesn’t know what. “Thank you,” she manages after a minute. “I’d love to meet them.”

Danny doesn’t know how to respond, so he looks around the room. His eye catches on the clock. “Oh, it’s late. I should head out.”

Claude and Ryanne share a look. Ryanne is the one to speak up. “Or you could stay here,” she suggests. It sounds casual enough, but Danny can see the tension in how she’s holding herself, waiting for his response.

“Are you sure?” he asks, searching both of their faces.

“No reason you can’t stay here,” Claude says. A few hours ago, Danny would have convinced himself that he was imagining the eagerness in Claude’s voice. He doesn’t think he is.

“Alright then,” Danny says. “I’ll need to borrow a toothbrush.”

\-----

They had talked for at least another hour, but finally Danny’s yawning had gotten frequent enough that he’d had to decide to go get ready for bed. Claude had told him they had an extra toothbrush from the last time he’d gone to the dentist in the cabinet under the sink in their bathroom, and given him directions. He and Ryanne were still on the couch presumably. Danny wouldn’t know.

He’d followed Claude’s directions and tried not to look around at their bedroom too much as he passed through it to get to their bathroom and the promised toothbrush. When he’d pulled open the door, though, he’d stopped in his tracks. Sitting next to the sink was a bright pink dildo. Honestly, that would have been bad enough, but it was clearly sitting next to a harness. Danny didn’t know how long he’d been standing there now, because he’d frozen in place at the sight.

What would it look like, Ryanne fucking Claude with the strap-on? Danny knew how Claude looked getting fucked, from personal experience, but he didn’t know how Ryanne would act with him. Was she domineering? Gentle and slow? Did Claude lie back and let her do the work, or did he—

“Everything okay?” Ryanne’s voice comes from behind him, and Danny still can’t make himself move. “Did you get lost—oh.” She‘s right behind Danny now, and she had obviously realized what had stopped him. “Uh, sorry,” she says, and pushes past him. “I didn’t expect anyone to be in here, sorry, should have cleaned up.” She turns back to him and Danny can see the exact moment she realizes that he’s staring in interest, because her eyes get very wide and then a wicked smile curls across her face. “Maybe we’re doing this a little out of order,” Ryanne starts, and Danny is even more caught than before. “But would you like to see me use this tonight?”

“Yes,” Danny breathes out before he can talk himself out of it.

Ryanne grabs the harness and the dildo. “Claude,” she yells. “We had a new idea.”

Danny steps to the side to let her walk back into the bedroom, and trails after her, still a little dazed.

It only takes Claude a minute to get to the door of the bedroom, and his face when he sees the scene inside is a pretty good match for how Danny’s feeling. “Are—” he croaks out, taking a step closer.

“Danny discovered this, and he said he was interested in seeing us use it,” Ryanne says. Danny can’t see her face. She’s turned to Claude, but it sounds remarkably like she had while breaking his curse. Like she knew exactly what she was doing and the universe would conform to her standards. Well. Maybe it would.

“Are you sure?” Claude asks, looking at Danny.

Danny doesn’t even need to think about this one. “Absolutely.”

“Fuck,” Claude says helplessly.

Ryanne turns back to him. “Do you want to help, or just watch?”

“I—” Danny nearly freezes up again. “I’ll—help.” He wants to see the two of them together, but he also is struck by the need to get his hands on Claude, now that they’re so close.

“Great,” Ryanne says cheerily, and snaps her fingers. The door swings closed and the overhead light blinks off, leaving only the warm glow of the bedside lamp. “Claude, strip and get on the bed. I’m thinking Danny can open you up, and then I’ll fuck you.” Danny hears Claude groan just as he shudders.

Claude does what he’s told, which is almost a surprise to Danny, except that clearly Ryanne and Claude’s dynamic is different than theirs had been, and also that Claude clearly wants the same thing Ryanne does. Danny watches as Claude’s chest is revealed, and then his legs, skinny as ever. He decides to strip down too. He’d been wearing a nice shirt and slacks, and he doesn’t want them getting messed up.

When Danny’s down to just a white undershirt and his boxers, he looks up to see Claude, fully naked and watching him from the bed. It’s just—overwhelming. Danny goes and sits on the bed, and they both watch in silence as Ryanne pulls her pants off. Her shirt is already gone, the cream of her bra a near perfect match for her skin, and it doesn’t take long for her to lose that as well. She steps out of her underwear, and Danny licks his lips unconsciously. He can see Claude smirking at him out of the corner of his eye, so he gives in and shoves Claude a little.

Claude snickers. “Been a while?”

“Oh, shut up,” Danny grumbles. Ryanne smiles a little as she adjusts the strap-on, and pulls the harness up around her hips. It makes a nice contrast, and the neon pink stands out even more like this.

“Here,” says Claude, reaching out and grabbing a small bottle off the nightstand on the other side of the bed. “Have fun.”

Danny takes the lube, but waits to see if Ryanne has any more directions. She doesn’t say anything, just watches them. He figures that means he’s on his own. That’s alright.

It’s been a long time, but Danny doesn’t think he’d ever forget how Claude likes to be fingered. Claude responds instantly to his touch, his head relaxing back into the bed as Danny kneels between his legs, and there’s none of the tension Danny remembers from the first few times they’d done this. From there, it’s easy. Danny works a finger in, making sure to add more lube than he thinks he needs. He can feel Claude around him and it’s exactly as intense as he remembers. He uses his other hand to push Claude’s leg out slightly, and he can feel the tension in Claude’s thigh. Danny strokes his hand up and down as he works his finger in and out, and Claude hums.

“That good?” Danny checks, and Claude nods.

“Give me another,” he says. It’s more casual than Danny remembers Claude being about talking during sex, and he wonders if that’s Ryanne’s doing or if Claude’s just older and less embarrassed now. Both, maybe. Danny adds more lube and a second finger. Claude is so warm. He spreads his fingers and feels Claude stretch ever so slightly around him.

It doesn’t take much longer for Claude to be ready for a third finger, and when they’ve gotten to that point, Ryanne perches next to Danny on the bed. “I think he’s probably ready,” she says. “What do you think, babe?”

Claude nods. “Yeah, I’m good.” He sounds like it, too, his accent more pronounced and his voice low.

“How about you sit up there,” Ryanne gestures to the head of the bed. “And keep him in one place for me?” Danny nods vigorously. He doesn’t want to remove himself from the situation, but he does want to watch them. He wants to see how they interact: it’s all he’s been watching for a good portion of the evening, and this isn’t a scenario he expected to get to see, but now that it’s available, he absolutely wants to take advantage of it. Danny slides across the bed, wiping his hand on Claude’s chest. Claude makes a face, but doesn’t do anything about it.

Danny sits back on his heels, and leans back against the headboard. It’s not the most comfortable position but he doesn’t think he’ll be here long. “Here,” he says, and Claude sits up slightly to scoot back and lay his head between Danny’s knees. Danny rests his hands on Claude’s shoulders.

Ryanne kneels between Claude’s legs. “All good?”

Claude actually rolls his eyes, which makes Danny laugh. “Come on and fuck me already,” Claude says with that particular mix of whining and challenging that he’s so good at. Ryanne just pats at his leg, and rubs some more lube over the dildo. She lines up and pushes the head of the dildo into Claude, and the pink is shocking disappearing into Claude’s body. Even if Danny couldn’t see it, he’d have known when Claude tensed up. Ryanne pauses and Danny feels Claude’s chest rise with a deep breath. When he lets it out, Ryanne pushes in further.

“Yeah, come on,” Claude says, and somehow his voice is even rougher than before. Remembering something, Danny tangles one of his hands in Claude’s hair. When Ryanne clutches at Claude’s thigh with one hand and slides into him just a little further, Danny pulls gently. Claude’s breath catches in his throat.

“That good?” Danny murmurs. Claude tries to nod, but that only means Danny pulls his hair harder, and Ryanne makes a quiet noise as Claude moans a little.

Ryanne locks eyes with Danny for a moment, and he doesn’t know what she sees, or if she’s just reminding herself that he’s there. She looks back down at Claude, and with a smile, she starts fucking him in earnest. She’s not fast, but she’s steady and Danny can see the bright pink of the strap-on sliding in and out of Claude. Claude is—practically writhing between them. Danny keeps his hand in Claude’s hair, which makes it so that if he rocks down to meet Ryanne’s thrusts, Danny yanks at his hair, and each time, Claude breathes a little harder. He’s mumbling, mostly meaningless encouragement.

It’s even better than Danny had imagined, and he’s helplessly hard, but he doesn’t want to stop touching Claude to do anything about it, so he just watches and feels Claude’s breathing getting faster as Ryanne keeps fucking him with the same steady pace. Danny can see that she’s getting tired, her legs are trembling a little.

Just then, Ryanne reaches down and, a little roughly, strokes Claude’s cock. Claude moans fully then, loud and shameless. Danny tightens his hand in Claude’s hair. It’s harder than it used to be, but it works well enough in combination with everything Ryanne is doing, and as she gives one more steady thrust into Claude, he comes.

Claude sinks down into the bed, all tension gone. Danny lets go of his hair, and sticks his hand down into his own boxers. He’s sure there’s more dignified things he could do, but he also doesn’t care. Claude’s head rolls to the side, resting against Danny’s thigh. “Come on,” he mumbles, and Danny does. It only takes a few strokes of his hand before he’s coming, too, and afterward he adjusts his legs so he can lean back and stretch out a bit.

Ryanne has pulled out of Claude and is looking at them with a smile on her face. Claude doesn’t even say anything, just curls his hand vaguely at her. She unhooks the buckles of the harness, and it slides down her legs as she stretches out next to Claude, her hand replacing it between her legs. Claude wraps his arm around Ryanne’s shoulders loosely as she rubs her clit, her eyes falling closed as she gasps and stiffens. She keeps rubbing herself as she comes, and then she also loses the tension of her body.

There’s a moment where they all just lay there, warm and a bit messy. Danny can’t remember the last time that he felt this good after sex. It seems like everything about this situation should be worrying, but instead, it just feels like they’re in sync. Danny is sure that he’ll find plenty to worry about in the morning, or later tonight if he wakes up again. For now, though, he slides down on Claude’s other side.

“Okay if I sleep here?” Danny asks, smiling to himself.

Claude turns toward him and presses a kiss into the nearest part of Danny, which happens to be his shoulder. “You have to,” he says, a little muffled. “ ‘m not moving.” And of course it would be easy enough for Danny to move out from under Claude, but Ryanne looks over at him and smiles, a little sleepily, and that’s when Danny knows that he won’t be going anywhere.

“Fair enough,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> <3 <3 <3
> 
> now that it's not a spoiler, i can say this was ALSO inspired by "-Okay, I didn't manage to get in a sex scene with the three of them, but please consider: Ryanne fucking Claude with the strap-on from behind while Danny holds his wrists and kisses his face, and Claude gets absolutely Wrecked. Ryanne and Danny make mimosas afterwards while Claude naps." from remi's comment on [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15160991) and i have been t r y i n g to write a fic with this for a YEAR. finally did it *sunglasses emoji but also sweating emoji*

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] mend another](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23756023) by [ofjustimagine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofjustimagine/pseuds/ofjustimagine)


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